


you walk to hell on purpose.

by tentacular-moon (the_three_garridebs)



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson Friendship, Eventual Romance, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, also, i don't know what else to tag this if anyone has any suggestions let me know, sambucky - Freeform, this is my first work in this fandom!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27658417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_three_garridebs/pseuds/tentacular-moon
Summary: Sam and Bucky are looking for criminals in the frozen breaches of Alaska. Bucky knows that Sam resents him, but they're stuck together until the case is solved. Also included: Bucky gets a haircut, Sam wrestles with the legacy of Captain America, and old secrets resurface.**Previously titled: Looking for Alaska**song titleartist: SALES, song: Your Own
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson
Comments: 22
Kudos: 60





	1. new cut.

The girl at the shop tilts his head to the right, clippers flashing over his scalp. Bucky holds still. She puts a tad of cream on her hands, runs her fingers through his hair, the touch light. He wants to shiver. In the mirror, his eyes are blank. Removed. He hardly registers her voice when she says, “It’s done. Do you like it?”

After, Bucky sits in his car, in the parking lot, just looking at his hair in the rearview mirror. He thinks about how they used to cut it while he was unconscious. 

Bucky pulls out of the strip mall and heads back to the motel. He imagines what Sam is doing. most likely still toying with the shield. He doesn’t understand it. Multiple times a day, he takes it out, puts it on his arm. He always shakes his head, _I’m not ready._

Bucky is certain there is no one more ready than Sam.

The motel they’re staying in is remarkably nondescript. The only identifying feature of the architecture is the arched entryway, which Bucky assumes was an early attempt at a Tuscan villa theme. It is standardly outdated: minimal Internet, abysmal breakfast, and dirt-cheap amenities. Bucky had to request toilet paper at the front desk.

Still. Nicer than his last place.

Their room is on the second floor. As Bucky climbs the concrete steps, he cards his fingers awkwardly through his hair, not used to the spiky feeling of it.

He knocks lightly on the door before entering the room. As he suspected, Sam is lying on his bed, fiddling with the shield. The television is turned on to a soccer game.

“Where’d you go?” Sam says, not looking up from the vibranium surface. He moves his arm, and the star flashes silver.

“I got a haircut,” Bucky replies. He closes the door behind him, walks over the to the desk. Sam has been rigging their comms system for two days, and it finally looks semi-functional. Bucky taps through some coordinates. They’re getting closer.

“Haircut? Wow. It’s not bad.”

Bucky hears Sam get up from the bed. He tries not to be too self-conscious. There’s a heavy palm on his shoulder, and Bucky is overly aware of how tense he’s become.

“Really, it’s not bad at all. Suits you.” Sam chuckles in a friendly way, and gives him a light shove. Bucky smiles sheepishly. He can't resist Sam’s charm, even though he’s aware, deep down, that he will always be no one to him. 

“They never cut it like _this_ ,” Bucky admits. He falls backwards onto his own bed, the striped comforter plush under his back. Sam unstraps the shield and places it against the bedside table they share. He sits back down, and Bucky can feel Sam’s inquiring gaze. They enter these silences often. Sam’s tact won’t allow him to ask about the dark stuff, the gritty stuff, but sometimes Bucky wishes he would.

As a partial explanation, Bucky adds, “They cut my hair, but only when I was unconscious. So. Didn’t have a lot of say in style. I’m pretty sure they kept it long to conceal my face.”

“So you’d just wake up…and your hair would be cut?” Sam is incredulous.

Bucky shrugs, “They did most tests and maintenance when I was out. So I didn’t…”

“Didn’t kill anyone?”

“Something like that.”

This is the most they’ve talked about Before. Before the snap. Before Bucky went under, before Sam became Captain America, before everything changed.

Sam opens up a laptop laying on his bed, indicating that the conversation is over. Bucky looks straight up at the ceiling, hands behind his head, his newly shorn hair prickly on his skin.

He has questions for Sam, too. About how he stays so calm when things are going badly, or how he always seems to know what to do. Bucky used to be this self-assured, but now…everything is unfamiliar. He is relearning how to exist in the world, and it’s going more slowly than he’d like. 

Admittedly, it is a little inconvenient that Sam has made no secret of the fact he only tolerates Bucky. It would be nice if they could find some way to a true partnership, where they are equals. Bucky cannot be an equal, though. Not while he is still himself, not while he carries the reputation of the Winter Soldier with him like a shadow. 

Sam still looks at him like he is wild. Bucky can’t blame him. 

They’ve been in Alaska for three weeks now, suffering against the dreary cold and greasy spoon food, the snow falling thick and white in the dead of night. It’s so resoundingly quiet, Bucky understands why someone would try to disappear here. If he were so inclined, that’s what he would do, too.

They’re not running away, though. They’re running, after.

Bucky is surprised at himself for sticking around this long. For caring what Sam does, where Sam goes. How Sam is feeling. It’s almost the same feeling he had for Steve, but not quite. There is less familiarity, more admiration. Bucky had known Steve too intimately for admiration, and so he loved him, instead. With Sam, they are distant enough for Bucky to recognize the things about him that might end up being their collective salvation. Should the necessity for such jaded, world-saving antics arise. 

Outside, the wind howls through the empty parking lot, rattling the cheap shade on the window. _Tacktacktacktacktack_ against the glass. Bucky is safe, and dry, and warm. He should be comforted by the fact that Sam will protect him, even if it’s only because Steve would have wanted him to.

Closing his eyes, he imagines what the day will be like tomorrow. Oily coffee and clipped commands. The cold air of morning on the back of his neck. And Sam’s palpable disappointment, that he survived, and Steve did not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoy this wintry fic as we approach the chilly months.  
> if you are so inclined, comments are appreciated!!


	2. civility.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky tails his target, and Sam shows a different side of himself.

Sam jostles him awake.

“Get up, haircut. We got work to do.”

“Yeah, I’m up.” He opens his eyes, looks around the room. Sam has already been getting ready for the day, guns and boots and burner phones on the little desk. Bucky grabs the remote of the bedside table and switches on the local news. He swings his legs over the bed, feeling heavy and tired. God. Every day, it’s so _fucking_ cold. Bucky probably should have packed more clothes. He kicks the radiator and the thing hums back to life.

“What’s on the agenda?” Bucky asks, voice rough. He walks into the bathroom. Sam talks through the door.

“Not much. Just tail your guy, track his movements. We can’t make any decisions yet. And, we have to consult with home base.”

It’s still new, knowing there’s a “home base.” That it’s _his_ home.

“No engagement, right?” Bucky says around his toothbrush.

“Sharon’ll kill us.”

“Noted.” He spits. 

Wiping toothpaste from his mouth, he walks to the bed, stretching the metal arm on instinct. It’s more fluid than the old one. Lifelike, even. He wears a rubber hand over the arm to disguise it when they go out, but on missions, it’s just a black glove. Fortunately, that’s not very suspicious, either. It’s winter in Alaska. Everyone is wearing black gloves.

They can’t suit up in such a small town, where people talk and word travels fast, but they can carry weapons without attracting any attention. Bucky zips up a bulky winter coat, the rubberized handle of a knife pressing into his chest. He jams a knit hat over his head, which they’d purchased at a gas station several miles out.

“Tail your guy for two hours, then meet back at the diner.”

The Monroe. Pretty bad eggs, but decent coffee.

They leave the room, and get in the car. After a quick drive, Sam deposits Bucky at an abandoned grocery store. The sign is mustard yellow in the morning, harsh against the eggshell sky. _BIG STOP. GREAT DEALS._ Says the sign. Bucky trudges through the snow, breath steaming around his hood. He puts a hand in his pocket to make sure the gun hasn’t slipped from its holster. 

Daniel Heron used to be a reporter. Then, the Blip. And everyone disappeared. It was a remarkable story, Bucky’d read about it. One man left, in a town of three thousand. Everyone else, presumed dead. The toll had been drastic.

Heron had joined a travel agency. They were shell companies, meant to disguise other operations. High-tech experiments and religious rituals, all to “travel” to the other side of the Blip.

Home base surveillance had him as a sort of Blip fanatic, with altered body chemistry. In the immediate aftermath, no one had followed up with Heron, and the data was incomplete.

Which is partially why Bucky is currently in sub-zero temperatures, with a little grab-bag of military-grade weapons, and what he hopes is a casual expression.

The run down section of empty stores and parking lots becomes a row of houses. Bucky looks for the number of Heron’s house, #7. He slides along the brick siding, trying not to look too out of place on the quiet street. Heron’s car is distinct. Teal. Bucky crouches behind the bumper and looks up at the bedroom window on the second floor, which he can tell is cracked open. There’s no sound except the rustle of his coat and the whistle of wind sweeping over ice.

Bucky makes a plan. At this point, it’s second nature. He pictures himself getting up, taking Heron’s car. Driving to the rendezvous. Removing the gun from his coat pocket and aiming it at the cracked window with deadly precision. The knife in his boot, he could—

There’s commotion inside the house. Banging and yelling. Bucky taps the small listening unit in his left pocket, and it scales up the wall in one fluid motion, relaying the staticky conversation into his ear.

_There’s something out there…you’re just afraid…weak-minded…_

Another voice, not Heron’s. A woman.

_Sam. I’m worried about you. You don’t look well. Let me—_

_Get away—_

Bucky listens for the impact. The person Heron is speaking with is forced roughly against a wall. Heron’s voice lowers to a spitting growl, and it’s impossible to make out the next few phrases. They argue for another ten minutes, then someone comes banging out of the front door, and that’s Bucky’s cue to get out of there. He stands up and moves around the back of the house into the yard as a red-headed woman gets in her car, which is parked in the street.

Then she is gone.

He walks back through the cold, past the grocery store, and two blocks down to the diner. It sits like a silver lozenge on the side of the road, sign flickering red on the grainy asphalt. He can see Sam in the window, flirting with the new waitress. She laughs, in the warm light of the diner, and for a single moment Bucky sees the life that Sam might have led. Living somewhere like here, away from all the problems of the world, away from Steve’s legacy, which follows him like a ghost. Bucky watches her walk away, still smiling, Sam wearing that perfect, immaculate charm. He’s never felt more like a burden, watching Sam, knowing that he will never be as wholly good as him. 

He walks up the steps to the diner entrance, feels his ears go warm in the sudden closeness of people and food. The radio is playing old music over the tinny speakers. Bucky takes off his hat, rubs a hand on the back of his neck. Sam gestures to him from the booth, his coat against the wall, dark screen shirt stretched over his chest. 

Bucky slides into the booth, picks up a piece of buttered toast. Sam has already ordered for both of them, and it gives Bucky a confusing feeling, that he’s done so without asking.

“She seems nice,” and he nods in the direction of the brunette waitress, who is waiting by the window for an order. He regrets the comment as soon as it leaves his mouth.

Sam raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I guess so. Interested?”

“No,” Bucky answers too quickly. He takes a bite of the toast, feels the oil coat his tongue. “Just noticing, that’s all.”

Sam gives him a bewildered look. Like he can’t believe Bucky is talking about something as inane as a pretty waitress, and Bucky can’t really believe it either.

“Sorry, I just. Seems like she likes _you_ , is what I mean.” _God._ Bucky internally winces. 

“You think?” They look over at her at the same time, in cartoonish synchronicity. She isn’t paying them any attention.

“Maybe, maybe,” Sam allows, smiling in that slow, warm way. “She’s cute, for sure.”

Bucky is so distracted by this admission that he almost misses Sam’s question.

“What about you?”

“Sorry?”

“You’ve been alive for so damn long. I’m curious. Did you ever have anyone? Someone like that.” The waitress laughs at something said in the kitchen, puts a hand on her hip. It’s easy to imagine her making the same face at Sam, and the thought makes Bucky bitter, and he can’t name why. 

“Well…” The truth is disappointing. No, he didn’t have anyone. There were some women who took interest in him, from time to time. He remembers one of the doctors who used to monitor his memory wipes, and fucking her, in the basement of an anonymous Russian safe house. 

Sam, of course, would probably be disappointed by that answer. So Bucky just shrugs and hides his expression by continuing to eat.

Sam shakes his head, chuckles. “Well, I guess you don’t have to tell me. It’s not strictly related to our mission here.” 

Bucky nods. “Speaking of which…” and he launches into a description of tailing Heron. Sam nods thoughtfully, and says, “Same thing with my guy. Seems nervous, on-edge. He was pacing around in his backyard. Do you think something’s about to happen?”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

“I don’t know why they’re so obsessed with going back. There’s nothing there. The whole loop was shut down when the stones were returned.”

“ _They_ clearly don’t understand that. Or, they don’t want to.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Some things are too big, too strange. It makes more sense that there’s secret world out there, where they can find all the time they lost. All the people that never _really_ came back.”

“I came back,” Sam says quietly, stirring his coffee.

“You did. But maybe it doesn’t feel that way to your friends and family who didn’t Blip. They’re still worried you’ll just…disappear again. You’re not quite real, yet. It’s too recent.”

“Look at you.”

“What?”

“You would’ve been great at my old job.”

“I’m being serious—"

“Calm down, Buck, just kidding.”

The waitress brings the check. She gives another little smile at Sam then walks away. On the back, in greasy blue ink, is her phone number. Instead of a pound sign, there’s a little heart. Bucky has the random urge to throw it away, so Sam doesn’t see it. But he doesn’t. He waves the scrap of paper under Sam’s face. 

“See? Told you.”

“No way.”

Sam takes it from him, and is visibly pleased with himself. It makes Bucky a little sick. He wants to ask, “Are you going to call her?” like they’re in high school, but he holds his tongue.

They drive back to the grocery store, and Bucky gets back to work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyo! i'm back with another chapter, a little longer this time. already have another idea for the next one, so hopefully there should be less of a wait.  
> hope you guys are doing okay. :)  
> as usual, comments are very appreciated! and thank you to everyone who left comments on the last chapter.


	3. beacon.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Sam take a break when a snow storm comes to town.

After three more days of tailing targets, and diner briefs, and long nights, there’s a storm. 

Sam slams the shield down from his arm, and Bucky winces. He hopes it didn't dent the floor. 

“Goddamn it. This sets us back, like, four days. We don’t have time for this.” 

Bucky chews on a fry he’s and tosses a greasy ball of paper at the at the waste basket. The weatherman points to a massive storm system moving into their area on their television. Surprisingly, Bucky’s not particularly bothered that their mission is offset by a few days. Might be helpful to regroup, strategize the next several weeks. 

“It’s gonna be at least three feet,” Bucky says. 

Sam gives him a derisive look. 

“Man, are you actually enjoying this?” 

“No, no, I mean. It’s bad the mission is getting pushed back. The timeline will be fucked. But it’s nice to have a break.” 

“You can’t be serious.” 

“I kind of am.” Bucky digs around in a fast food bag, looking for a new ketchup packet. He finds it, squeezes it out on the carton of fries, and waits for Sam to calm down. For the first time since they arrived in Alaska, he feels optimistic. He likes the snow. It softens corners. Flattens distance. 

A little voice says, he hates being around you. He hates that you are a living, breathing reminder of the friend he lost. He doesn't want to be snowed in, out in the middle of nowhere, with you. Bucky pushes this thought down, tries not to let it cloud his misplaced relief. 

“I should go out. Grab some food and shit. We don’t have anything.” 

“No, I’ll go. Stay. It’s fine.” Bucky wipes his hands on his pants, and grabs the rubber hand off the drawers. 

“Really?” Sam drags a palm over the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I’ll just take the car and go to the store that’s still open.” 

He walks to the door, shoulders on one of several heavy coats hanging on the rack. “I’ll be back in an hour.”  
The drive is quick. The market is claustrophobically arranged, with shelves leaning into each other, and crowded pyramids of cans. There are a few other people milling around the front, and Bucky pushes his cap lower over his forehead. No one has recognized him so far. And it’s been years since his face was splashed on newspapers across the globe. Still. He can’t afford to be caught. 

He walks to the aisle. He wonders what Sam likes to eat. So far, it’s been a lot of greasy diner food, and burgers. Bucky wonders what he likes to eat. Usually, he just has whatever is available.

The texture of life...is this what it’s like for people? Standing in front of food, deciding, wondering about the preferences of someone else? So simple and closed.

Bucky dumps sandwich meat and sliced cheese into his basket. He wanders into the next aisle, grabs bread and cereal, two things he’s seen Sam eat before. And peanut butter. Bucky looks at the shelf, scanning for the brand Sam has used in the past. He guesses, and hopes it’s the right one. 

After picking up a few more items, and a type of vodka that looks like it could kill an elephant, Bucky pays with cash and loads the groceries into the car. 

On the ride back, he thinks about the outline of Sam’s back in the dark. How he sleeps with all the covers in disarray, two pillows bunched together behind his head. And his breathing, close to Bucky’s own breathing, but still its own distinct pace. 

Separated by five feet, and Bucky cannot hate anyone who sleeps so nearby, offers their own peace without asking for anything in return. No matter how much Sam hates him, Bucky will never be able to return the feeling. Sam is not his enemy. How could he be, when he sleeps, turned on his side, in the same room, so close to him. 

Bucky tramps up the steps back to their room, arms laden with bags, all jostling into each other. He uses the toe of his boot to kick the door, startling Sam inside, who replies, “Jesus!” There’s the sound of steps, and then Sam appears, grabbing bags from his hands. 

“It’s weird in there,” Bucky says, setting down the food on his bed. Sam is poking around the contents of the bag. 

“Weird how?” 

“Guess I just haven’t been to a market like that, in a while. I used to, in Bucharest, but it was still different. America is different.” 

Sam scoffs. “That’s for damn sure.” 

He pulls the vodka out of the bag. “What the hell is this?” 

Bucky shrugs and shoves deli meat into their mini fridge. Does peanut butter go in the refrigerator? He feels stupid for not knowing. 

“We’re going to be snowed in, so I thought—” 

“This is the perfect opportunity to get black-out drunk?” 

“Uh…” 

Sam laughs, and sets it on the desk. “You’re crazy.” 

The snow comes thick and heavy, settling into the road in drifts of white. Bucky watches from his side of the room, clippings of old Heron stories spread around the bed, long abandoned. 

He likes this color of the sky, grey and unbroken, flecked with white. There’s a blaze of orange in the distance; the sun will set soon. And maybe it’s not so inconvenient, to be out here, with time stretching forward in an infinite circle, the ends of it unrigid, undefined, scooping towards him in slow motion, like the shield, arcing through the air.

“I’m so sick of this,” Sam groans. “Actual paper…what were they thinking…” 

“You know, we used to put everything on paper,” Bucky says, turning around to face him. “There weren’t any other options, actually…” 

“Some intern couldn’t have scanned these in?” 

“We have interns?” 

“No, but. You know. What about that kid?” 

“I’m pretty sure he’s going to school, Sam.” 

“Right, right.” 

He pushes the files away from him and leans backwards, stretched out on the bed. It looks tiny underneath him, like a dollhouse bed. Bucky doesn’t take up space in the same way, and sitting on his own bed, he’s never been more aware of this.  
“What time is it?” 

Bucky checks his watch. “It’s four.” 

“Fuck it.” 

Sam walks over to the freezer and pulls out of the vodka, uncorking it with a challenging lift of his eyebrow. Bucky shrugs, in what he hopes is a nonchalant way. His eyes catch on the tiny drip of clear liquor that travels down Sam’s chin. 

“You know, I can’t get drunk, right? It’d take twenty of those.” 

Sam slumps onto his bed, holds out the bottle. 

“I don’t believe you.” 

Bucky takes it, holds it to his mouth. The sting is hot and icy in the back of his throat, snaking across his tongue in one frozen coil. It’s ludicrously strong, but there’s no sensation, and Bucky is just relishing the taste. A little dickishly, he lifts the thing onto the crook of his elbow, finishing off three-fourths of it while Sam watches, mildly awed. Still, he feels nothing, but the buzz in his mouth is something and triggers a placebo effect in his brain. Though there is no chemical release, Bucky can feel himself relaxing, the sharp taste willing him to calm down, to stop freaking out. 

Sam takes it back, mouth agape. 

“You are fucking crazy.” 

“You’re fucking crazy,” Bucky parrots back. 

“Man,” Sam says admonishingly. But he finishes the rest of the vodka, looking Bucky directly in the eye. 

After a few beers and an ill-advised shot of rum from the mini bar, Sam is predictably punch-drunk. Bucky is still stone-cold sober, but something about the alcoholic taste, and Sam’s glowy cheeks twitching from laughter, has him feeling unexpectedly light-headed. Still, if they were to be tested by Stark’s drug kits for super people, he would probably read as barely tipsy. 

He sips the tiny vial of schnapps he’s been drinking. It tastes horrible, but it dulls the sensations in his teeth, makes the back of his tongue dry. Sam’s splayed out on his bed, murmuring but not quite asleep. Bucky watches over the rim of the little bottle as Sam’s t-shirt moves up over his abdomen, the orange glow of the hotel lamps lighting up his entire body. And he really does feel intoxicated, though he knows it’s impossible, because his heart is pounding in his ears and there’s an uncomfortable sensation in his chest like someone is stepping on him. To Bucky, this this is, sadly, a fairly familiar sensation. 

“Steve’s gone, huh?” Sam slurs from the bed. Bucky’s blood freezes at the mention of Steve. 

“Yeah, he’s gone Sam. But it’s good for him.” 

“Left us, though.” 

“He did.” Bucky stands, concerned where Sam is going with this. They haven’t talked about Steve. Not since he went back through the time warp, and never came back. Of course, it was presumed he was dead, at this point. 

Everyone had made their peace with this. Even Bucky, to an extent. 

“I miss him. A lot. And you’re….not him.” Sam sits upright on the bed, faces Bucky. He’s paused in front of the television, unsure if he should be comforting Sam, or not. He feels like an animal, waiting in the woods for a slight sound to send him running. 

“You’re not him. You’re weird. And quiet. Like there’s thoughts running so fast and loud through your head, but you just can’t say any of them. And there’s this thing…you look at me like you expect something great from me, man.” Sam’s gaze meets Bucky’s, unfocused, but firm. 

He continues, “You’re not him, and sometimes that makes me fucking hate you, even though you never stop looking at me like that. Looking at me like there’s another great Captain America, right around the corner. It wasn’t supposed to be you. It wasn’t supposed to be me.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“We’re all supposed to be dead. Allies of allies, the secondhands. Those guys, they’re supposed to die.” 

“We’re not secondhands.”

“Not anymore. Only you,” Sam says, laughing unsteadily. Bucky doesn’t know what to do with his vibranium arm; it feels heavy on his joints. Strange. The prickly awkward feeling he used to get on his hand doesn’t register on the metal palm. 

“Let’s sleep, okay?” Bucky sits down next to Sam on the bed, his skin heating up at the thought of lying parallel to him, which he almost doesn’t have the nerve to do. 

He does anyway. 

Sam moves over, almost as an afterthought, mumbling under his breath. He’s not crying, exactly, but there’s a glassy look in his eyes like he’s thinking about it. Bucky was never trained for situations where he’s supposed to comfort someone. 

They wait, and eventually, sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is monstrously late, i'm so sorry that i keep on forgetting to update this fic and work on it.  
> finals are over, so hopefully i can be better about all this.  
> thank you very much for reading and comments are always appreciated!


	4. red-handed.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trio, anyone? 
> 
> Bucky sneaks into Daniel Heron's apartment, to collect more information.

Maybe Bucky needs to reassess things.

That’s what he thinks, squinting across the snow-glare at the crack of dawn, waiting for Daniel Heron to leave his apartment. 

Sam had not looked well in the morning. For the first time since they'd arrived, it was Bucky, leading them through the day. Bleary-eyed, Sam had barely acknowledged Bucky in the car on the way to their respective haunts. 

Particles of ice crunch beneath Bucky’s boots as changes position. The air is cold, but the sun beams down, suggesting warmth.

It’s just that, Bucky does not have the time. There will never be enough time. No matter how many years he is put under, brought up, and put under again. He doesn’t have the normal, human time to love someone like they deserve to be loved. And Sam deserves that.

Grimly, he wonders if this is all he will ever provide, to anyone. The hand on the gun, always willing to do the job.

Bucky frowns. No. That’s not right. He _wants_ to be here. He has a duty to help Captain America, to protect him. To make amends for past wrongs.

Maybe it’s all he’s good for, but it’s not nothing. Even if Sam hates him.

There’s a noise from the building.

Heron is awake, moving through the kitchen of his apartment. Bucky can tell from the pattern of his footsteps he’s stopped at the kitchen table and removed something from it. Probably his briefcase.

Today, Heron is travelling out of town, and won’t be back till evening. It’s one of few chances Bucky has to take a recording of the room, to gather data on Heron’s project. The same project Sam’s man, Dr. Jacob Pershing, is consulting on. Bucky hold himself still, listens close.

Heron slams the door of his apartment and walks down the stairs, unlocking his car door with a hasty _click._ From behind the building, Bucky catches a glimpse of Heron's face, the grey stubble and purple eye-bags. He looks haggard, old, even though his file says he's only thirty-five. 

Bucky tosses a tracking device across the pavement, and it skitters up to the car before magnetizing to the chassis. A small green display on his watch shows the car moving out of the driveway and into the street. Hopefully, this will lead them to Heron’s watch house, where he stores the tech for his experiments. 

The car disappears into the distance, and Bucky has exactly five minutes to enter the building and look through the apartment. Five minutes because, Heron could come back at any moment, and also because historically, Bucky is not gentle with people who walk in while he’s working. Blood is bureaucracy, is the saying at home base. Cracked jaws and splintered shins equals hours of Accords-related paperwork.

He loops silently around to the door and jostles it open, moving up the staircase in one swift movement. The apartment has a still, leftover feeling, the air unsettled from Heron’s ceaseless pacing and worrying. Bucky walks to the table, takes snapshots of the documents laid out in front of him with the tiny camera hidden in a pair of sunglasses clipped to his jacket’s breast pocket. Though he’s tempted to read through the files right there in the kitchen, he can't stay. Bucky glances around, scans junk for signs of significance. There’s nothing, except the papers on the table. 

Then, there’s a creaking sound, and someone is walking into the room.

Bucky crouches behind the table, cursing himself for forgetting the woman who occasionally frequents the apartment. He remembers her from days ago.

He’s not surprised at all when she starts screaming at the sight of him, drawing a knife from the counter, and brandishing it in his direction. 

She’s thin, with a long, sloping nose, brown freckles, and red hair. It’s mussed from sleep, and Bucky pities her, standing with that flimsy knife, aimed at his chest. 

Slowly, he stands up, hands raised. He looks to the door. _Fifteen seconds..._

“Who are you?” she forces out, and it’s the same high, scared voice that pleaded with Heron. “Are you trying to stop him? Just tell me if you’re trying to stop him.”

“What’s it to you?”

With effort, she lowers the knife, and takes a shaky breath. “God, I’m so glad you’re here. I knew someone would come, I just didn’t know who. There isn’t much time.”

“Who are _you_?”

“I’m HYDRA.” 

Bucky draws a gun from his jacket and aims at her. The word, _hydra_ , enters him like poison. All these years later, and he is still terrified. After all, what kind of organization would make someone like him, _on purpose_?

“No, no, please.” She drops the knife, puts out her hands. Her wrists are thin, showing beneath the sleeves of her sweatshirt, and in the weak morning light Bucky can see how red and swollen her eyes are.

“You have thirty seconds.”

“Immediately after the Blip, I was tailing Heron, since he was amassing followers. Things went bad in those five years, and so I left HYDRA. But I stayed here. With him, because I believed—“

Bucky gestures with the gun, motioning for her to go on.

“I believe that he’s a good man, just confused. But he’s gonna hurt a lot of people.”

“What’s he trying to do? You’re running out of time to make yourself useful.”

She clasps her hands together pleadingly, not daring to move from her tile of the kitchen floor. 

“Daniel believes that our world is purgatory. And that everyone who left was supposed to die, and live an honest death in the Vale, which is an endless, beautiful place, where there is no Blip. Only happiness. He wants to send us all back. He’s going to return to the town where everyone Blipped but him, and send them all back, including all the followers he’s accrued here.” 

A wave of horror passes through Bucky.

“If I take you out of here, it won’t be as a guest.”

She nods eagerly, gathering up her threadbare hoodie over her chest.

“You’ve got one minute to gather everything you need, and then we’re leaving. What’s your name?”

The woman looks at him hopefully. “I’m Helen.” Then she turns into the bedroom and starts pulling on her clothes. 

Sam, understandably, is less than pleased when Bucky deposits her in the diner booth, hazel eyes staring back at the two of them, round and frightened. 

“Is it something about me?” he says, in hushed tones. His expression is casual and relaxed, but his tone is accusatory. Bucky looks down. “Do I just attract ex-HYDRA?”

Helen is frozen in place, hands wreathed around a cup of steaming hot tea. Bucky pities her, against his better instincts.

“Listen, Sam, what she says checks out. I looked through the snapshots of Heron’s plan, and it all lines up. He’s building some kind of mini doomsday device, and he’s going to kill all the people who _just got back._ ”

Sam sighs, a long, aggravated noise through his nostrils, and nods. “Dr. Pershing has similar plans in his study. It’s some kind of bomb, far as I can tell. I had the blueprints sent back to home base.” 

“Helen isn’t lying, then?”

“Helen is not lying.” Sam turns to her, and his voice shifts to a kinder register, though Bucky can still hear his annoyance. Maybe that’s just for him.

“What made you decide to turn against him? Doesn’t all this end-of-the-world stuff sound _exactly_ like HYDRA?”

“Well, it was the second Blip, actually. It wasn’t HYDRA who brought everyone back. It wasn’t HYDRA who brought my father and sister back. And once you’re in, there’s _incentives_ to stay. Sometimes, pretty terrible ones. The tradeoffs are worth it because they tell you, you’ll be special. You’ll have power. But they forgot about me in those five years.”

Sam runs his knuckles over his lips, regarding her with open suspicion.

He continues, “And what exactly are we supposed to do with you now? We can’t let you just walk free, after this is over.”

Helen shrugs, smiles sadly. “I know. To be honest, I knew as soon as I recognized you. I know, of course, that you’re James Barnes. And you’re Sam Wilson. And that you saved us.”

“What are you planning to tell him? You just up and left.”

“I’ll call and say I had to check on my dad. He’ll believe that.”

Bucky finishes eating in silence. After Sam pays, they put Helen, cuffed, into the backseat of the car. She looks subdued, but still hopeful.

“Sam, I’m sorry.”

They’re standing beside the restaurant, watching the car. It’s early in the day, and no one is around except for them. Sam’s arms are crossed over his chest. Bucky is wearing the dumb black glove over his arm. It’s cold, and Bucky resists the urge to hop from one foot to the other. 

“You shouldn't have let anyone in on this. She is a _major_ liability. I gotta call home base, and tell them we’ve been made. You jeopardized this whole thing.” 

“They’ll take her out. She could be useful. Helen’s put more pieces of this thing together than we have in weeks. And she probably has HYDRA intel— ”

“It’s not about that. We cannot work with ex-HYDRA. They are still dangerous. They are not to be trusted.” 

Before he can stop himself, Bucky snaps back, “Is that why you hate me so fucking much? Even after Steve?”He’s not angry, exactly, more hurt. It’s embarrassing how easily Sam can get under his skin, how Sam knows precisely what to say to wound Bucky, more than he thinks possible. Bucky needs Sam to say, that’s not it, he _does_ trust him. He realizes, after he’s snapped, that’s the only reason he opened his mouth.

Some part of him craves permission to believe, for a second, he was never really the Winter Soldier.

Sam’s eyes widen dangerously, and he takes a step closer to Bucky, completely unintimidated in a way that makes Bucky feel about an inch tall.

“I know what I said. And I don’t take it back. But maybe you should start brooding about the 99 percent of the time I’m _terrified_ you’re going to die, because you have no self-control, no discipline, no sense of self-preservation. And you’ve never been trained to work on a team like this. You go _everything_ alone, and yeah, that’s fucking frustrating because I am partially responsible for you.”

Apologies, excuses, are tumbling out of Bucky’s mouth, but it’s no use. Sam is already walking back to the car. 

He gets in the passenger side, staring straight ahead, Helen giving him a quizzical look. They’re about to back out when there’s a tap on the driver’s window, and there's Sharon, standing outside. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, i know i've been doing an absolutely terrible job of updating this, and every time i promise to get better i just fall right off the map again. but a n yyyyy way, i hope you enjoyed this chapter, and i'll be sure to have another one soon. 
> 
> i tend to plot out what i'm writing sort of as i'm writing it so now that i have a clearer idea of what i want this story to be about (my original idea was literally just the location alaska), i think it should be easier to write a satisfying conclusion. 
> 
> as always, comments are very much appreciated. <3 <3 hope everyone is doing okay.


	5. answers.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Sam have a little heart-to-heart.

“So. Helen.”

Sharon spreads her hands out on the table in their hotel room.

Helen is on the concrete balcony overlooking out over the tiny courtyard, smoking a cigarette she had fleeced away in her handbag.

“Yes. I’m sorry I brought her in to this, but she’ll be helpful.”

Sam stares stoically ahead, still simmering from their exchange outside the diner. Sharon gives them a reprimanding look.

“We don’t have time for pissing contests.” 

“It’s not that,” Sam starts, but Sharon cuts him off.

“Save it. I don’t want to know. I just came to deliver the information that we need you guys to handle this. And we need you to bring Helen in after you’re done. I originally came to tell you just that first part, but I guess things have changed. Bucky, give me a good reason I shouldn’t arrest her right now.”

Bucky always forgets he doesn’t actually know Sharon at all.

“She has information we don’t have, after being on this for weeks. She knows Heron’s personality. And, she can help tell us what we’ve been getting wrong about his cult. Or followers, or whatever. She is an asset to this mission, even if she is ex-HYDRA.”

The phrase “ex-HYDRA” settles between the three of them.

“You do realize it’s difficult to rely on you for an honest assessment,” Sharon says matter-of-factly. Sam snorts, but does not interject.

“I realize that.” He gives her a pleading look. “This will help, I promise.”

“I agree,” Sam adds, quietly. Bucky glances at him in surprise, but Sam doesn’t meet his eyes. That’s Sam’s passive-aggressive indicator for _we’ll talk about it later._

They wait for her to make a decision. She brushes her blonde hair from her shoulder and sighs. “Fine. Keep her. But if you lose her, we have to take her in. And it won’t be you two doing it.”

“Thank you,” Bucky says, and he’s never said thank you to anyone at home base before. 

“Don’t mention it.”

After exchanging a few more details, Sharon leaves. 

Helen slides open the balcony door and slips in, smelling faintly of smoke.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna go get you a room. You two stay here.” And Sam walks out, still not meeting Bucky’s eyes. 

“I know I’m not supposed to be here. And I don’t deserve your protection,” Helen says, after Sam shuts the door a little harder than necessary.

“We’re not protecting you. Just trying to nab Heron,” Bucky replies, tapping through the holographic display hovering above his watch. The flickering green diagram shows the dot about a hundred miles out, exactly where Helen said he would be.

“You’re ex-HYDRA, too,” Helen remarks contemplatively from the bed. She’s sitting perched on the edge, politely leaning away from the intimate sprawl of Sam’s sheets. 

“Yep.”

Bucky fiddles around with the display, checking for surrounding structures. There’s a ski lodge, near the town, but it’s unclear from web searches whether or not it was shut down after the Blip.

“Not by choice, though,” she prods further.

“I left by choice.”

“You’re like me,” Helen says softly. She watches Bucky slip off the black glove, vibranium arm gleaming gold and black. He flexes the fingers, feels the electric signals tingle up and down the arm, almost like a physical sensation.

It will never be physical.

“Not quite,” Bucky responds.

He realizes they are probing each other for information in typical HYDRA fashion, that she is doing to him what he is attempting to do to her. And maybe Sam is right about this aspect of his training. He doesn’t know how to work on a team. Once he did, but HYDRA stamped it all out of him, replaced it with suspicion, vengeance, rage.

Bucky thinks about the three inches between his chest and Sam’s chest, the disappointment written on Sam's face just slightly offset by the warmth in his eyes. 

“You been working with them for long?” Helen asks, disrupting his thoughts. 

“A few years, not longer.”

“You’re lucky you got out when you did.”

Bucky scoffs disdainfully. “I’d hardly call myself lucky.”

Sam comes back through the door, holding a key attached to a plastic tab. “Got a room for you, Helen. Two doors down. We’re going keep an eye on you, so I’d recommend staying in one place.” He tosses an earpiece to her from the desk, and she catches it, eyes round and pathetically grateful.

“If you need to leave—which you shouldn’t—just radio.” 

Grasping her key, bag, and earpiece, she shuffles to the door, practically bowing on her way out. Bucky looks away. He remembers Steve and Sam, pulling him out, waiting for him to re-enter his own consciousness. He wonders if he looked like this, so utterly worthless. A useless byproduct of destruction and war. 

Bucky fidgets with his watch.

They’re alone again. 

“Listen, I just want you to bring me on your decisions. Why can’t you just _tell_ me what is going through your brain?” Sam says.

“Why do _you_ always act like you can't trust me?” Bucky says.

“When we first met, you violently destroyed the car I was driving. Remember?”

“No…"

“You grabbed the wheel through the windshield.” Sam is giving him that _are you fucking kidding me look_ , half laughing, half chiding.

“Buck, you know I trust you,” Sam continues, “I think it’s easier for you to think I don’t. Because then, we’re partners. We’re a team, and you have to tell me what's going on, and you have to give a shit. And you’ve spent so long, just not giving a shit. Maybe at first, I didn't trust you, but now I do. With my life.”

Sam looks surprised for a moment, like he didn’t expect to say that. He shuffles his feet on the grimy carpet, and crosses his arms over his chest. Probably bracing for whatever idiotic thing Bucky is planning to say next.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, alright?” Bucky says. He’s not so great with apologies. If he’s being honest with himself, he’s not so great at _talking_ , in general. 

“It’s fine, Buck,” Sam sighs. He reaches out, nudges Bucky’s shoulder in a way that makes all of Bucky’s hair stand on end, and he resists the urge to lean closer, press himself against Sam so that the lines of their bodies are parallel. “Let’s just get back to work and stop bitching, okay?” 

Bucky nods.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is so embarrassingly late and it's really not that good either, lol. but it had to be done!! i have to move with the next chapter! hope you enjoyed it anyway, and comments are always appreciated.


End file.
